I'm not sure why Death and Tohu Wa-Bohu exist when we already Doom. Or why Dove and War exist when Peacekeeper and Berserker do/are the same thing.

Dark King got the Adversary treatment and became worse in this edition. Spider getting an Alt. version where he offers bonuses to Stealth and Illusion spells instead of being a computer nerd mentor is a nice change. I'll be waiting for the Adversary to get a similar treatment.

Probably an errata to be, but dedicated conjurer lets you pick any three spirits, while the initiation is only among the normal list of, guardian, task, etc. This means you could pick up random ones like succubus or the like.

1) The BurminatorYou remember that underwhelming Quality "Elemental Focus" from Hard Targets (p.191, +2 dice to cast your chosen element but drain is turned into that element too and you suffer the side effects)?That drawback turns out to be a feature if you combine it with Elemental Master (p.36 FA).Not only is all damage from the chosen element halved, but you also are now immune to the side effects. The kicker is that the damage is halved before you soak. Suddenly a F12 Fireball is now only a mild 6 drain. If you use a fetish and/or the Mentor's Mask it's only 4.

Well, I can see how it's written in a way that could be interpreted that way, but given there's qualities that grant damage resistance dice that don't affect drain to my knowledge, one could argue that drain isn't really "incoming" damage and wouldn't be affected. Though more likely is that the author of that one simply didn't know that "Elemental Focus" exists. I can see it eliminating the side effects, but I wouldn't build a char around the reduced value lest potential errata wreck the concept before it really gets off the ground. Independent of it's validity, I believe if you used a fetish it would reduce the drain from 12 to 10, which is then halved, coming out at 5. After all, the Fetish reduces the drain by 2, not grants two automatic hits on the drain resistance test.

At character creation, anyways. And Mastery qualities don't get more expensive afterwards, so you just need to wait a run or two, at worst, before you get all those juicy bonus spells. ^^The limit might be there mostly to reduce the amount of spells the magician doesn't need to buy formulas for.

It may get errata but until then it is definitely all incoming damage. All other instances where you get dice to reduce damage or half or auto successes explicitly make exceptions to drain damage. By omission this means drain is included in this quality.

"A character with this quality reduces all incoming damage from their chosen element by half, and they are immune to any secondary effects it might normally cause (see Elemental Damage, p.170, SR5). Because incoming damage is halved before rolling for damage resistance, this quality protects both the character and their worn equipment from elemental damage."

So, I can see fire being used as the element for elemental master. But the others? What is Air, anyways? Sound? Lightning? Air isn't really a damage element, or is it?Earth is also just physical, and few attacks have "earth" as their elemental keyword. Actually I think fire may be the only good choice, it's pretty clear cut what it is and what it does.

Edit: Also a great concept is the Pacifist Adept quality. Take one of our perpetually overpowered MyAds, cover yourself in smoke and darkness, and watch quietly as everyone shoots themselves in the foot. I wonder if you lose karma if someone dies by hitting themselves?

"A character with this quality reduces all incoming damage from their chosen element by half, and they are immune to any secondary effects it might normally cause (see Elemental Damage, p.170, SR5). Because incoming damage is halved before rolling for damage resistance, this quality protects both the character and their worn equipment from elemental damage."

What? But why? I don't really care if it's strong or not, but this option feels sort of counter-intuitive, or inconsistent, or out of place.

Logged

*I have problems with clarifying my point in English, so sometimes I might sound stupid or rude.*

It may get errata but until then it is definitely all incoming damage. All other instances where you get dice to reduce damage or half or auto successes explicitly make exceptions to drain damage. By omission this means drain is included in this quality.

Some pretty strong arguments could be made that Drain doesn't count as "incoming damage" since Drain doesn't originate outside of the character. It isn't incoming, because it isn't arriving from somewhere else. Now, the immunity to the secondary effects would still apply, so it is still a good combo. It just isn't quite as game-breaking as you show in your example.